Mobile communication terminal and data input method

ABSTRACT

A mobile communication terminal includes a display module to display image data on an image display area, an input module to generate touch data according to a touch input in a touch area, and a storage module to store the touch data associated with the image data. A data input method includes displaying image data on an image display area, generating touch data according to a touch input in a touch area, associating the touch data with the image data, and storing the touch data associated with the image data.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority from and the benefit of Korean PatentApplication No. 10-2008-0054445, filed on Jun. 11, 2008 and KoreanPatent Application No. 10-2008-0103080, filed on Oct. 21, 2008, whichare both hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes as if fullyset forth herein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a data input method and a mobilecommunication terminal that may display touch data such as charactersand pictures along with image data on an image display area, maygenerate touch data according to a touch input in a touch area, and maystore the touch data associated with the image data.

2. Discussion of the Background

With increased usage and development of communication technologies,various services such as games, wireless Internet connectivity, stilland video image capture, and the like, are provided in a mobilecommunication terminal, along with voice call service and a shortmessage service (SMS).

A user may record moving images and take photos using a camera installedin a mobile communication terminal. Image data taken from photos andmoving images may be transmitted to one or more other mobilecommunication terminals using a multimedia messaging service (MMS).

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of recording moving imagesin a mobile communication terminal.

The mobile communication terminal may generate image data based on auser's operation, and may store the generated image data in a storagemodule. However, the mobile communication terminal has no capability toinsert characters and pictures into the image data when generating theimage data. That is, mobile communication terminal may not provide suchfunctions as inserting pictures and characters into the image data.

Accordingly, a new technique is required to save touch data, such ascharacters and pictures, associated with image data and to display thetouch data along with the image data when the image data is played orretrieved.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention provides a data input method where touch data can begenerated according to a touch input in a touch area corresponding tothe image display area. The touch data may be associated with imagedata, and stored so that when the image data is displayed, the touchdata is also displayed. This invention also provides a mobilecommunication terminal to perform the data input method.

This invention also provides a data input method that may increase userenjoyment by associating touch data, such as characters, icons, andgraphics, with image data. This invention also provides a mobilecommunication terminal to perform the method.

Additional features of the invention will be set forth in thedescription which follows, and in part will be apparent from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

This invention discloses a mobile communication terminal including adisplay module to display image data on an image display area, an inputmodule to generate touch data according to a touch input in a toucharea, and a storage module to store the touch data associated with theimage data.

This invention discloses a data input method including displaying imagedata on an image display area, generating touch data according to atouch input in a touch area, associating the touch data with the imagedata, and storing the touch data associated the image data.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description andthe following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and areintended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a furtherunderstanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, andtogether with the description serve to explain the principles of theinvention.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of recording moving imagesin a mobile communication terminal according to a conventional art.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a mobilecommunication terminal according to an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of generating image data inthe mobile communication terminal of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating another configuration of a mobilecommunication terminal according to an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a data input method according to anexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ILLUSTRATED EMBODIMENTS

The invention is described more fully hereinafter with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which embodiments of the invention are shown.This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms andshould not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein.Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure isthorough, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to thoseskilled in the art. In the drawings, the size and relative sizes oflayers and regions may be exaggerated for clarity. Like referencenumerals in the drawings denote like elements.

A mobile communication terminal as used throughout the presentspecification may be, for example and without specific limitation, acomputer, a public switched telephone network (PSTN) terminal, a voiceover Internet protocol (VoIP) terminal, a session initiation protocol(SIP) terminal, a media gateway control (Megaco) terminal, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a mobile phone, a personal communicationservice (PCS) phone, a hand-held personal computer (PC), a Code DivisionMultiple Access (CDMA)-2000 (1×, 3×) phone, a Wideband CDMA (WCDMA)phone, a dual band/dual mode phone, a Global System for MobileCommunications (GSM) phone, a mobile broadband system (MBS) phone, or asatellite/terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) phone.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a mobilecommunication terminal 200 according to an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention.

As illustrated, the mobile communication terminal 200 may include adisplay module 210, a display control module 220, a storage module 230,an input module 240, an input sensor 250, and a data configurationmodule 260.

The display module 210 may display image data, generated via a camera orreceived from another mobile communication terminal, such as by MMS, onan image display area. The image data may be a still image or picture,or video or moving images, taken via a camera installed in the mobilecommunication terminal 200 or received from another mobile communicationterminal, such as by MMS. Alternatively, the image data may be adocument with characters, with or without images, in anapplication-specific format, such as pdf, or in an image format, such asJPEG. The image data may be captured by the mobile communicationterminal, or may be received at the mobile communication terminal byMMS, through an email server and an email application on the mobilecommunication terminal, through an internet application on the mobilecommunication terminal, or through any other wireless or wired datatransfer mechanism, including without limitation a device-to-devicetransfer mechanism, such as a short range wireless communication moduleincluding an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) module or a Bluetooth®module. The image display area may be an area displaying images on ascreen.

The input module 240 may generate touch data according to a touch inputin a touch area corresponding to the image display area. The touch areamay include all of the image display area. That is, to receive the touchdata from a user, the touch area may be arranged to correspond to theimage display area. As an example, the touch data may be any graphicaldata, including characters, figures, pictures, emoticons, diagrams andthe like, and may be inputted via various devices such as sticks or astylus, pens, fingers, and the like. The user may also select otherfeatures of the touch data, such as color or thickness.

For this, the input sensor 250 may calculate coordinate informationabout a point or series of points where the touch input is received inthe touch area. The coordinate information may be specific informationabout where the touch data is inputted on the touch area, and, based onthe coordinate information, includes a location where the touch data isto be displayed and/or data about whether the touch data corresponds toone of characters, pictures, diagrams, figures, and emoticons.

The data configuration module 260 may generate the touch data based onthe calculated coordinate information. Also, the data configurationmodule 260 may obtain time information of a time when the touch input isreceived, and may associate the touch data with the image data based onthe obtained time information and the coordinate information.

That is, by associating the touch data along with the image data basedon the time information and the coordinate information, when the imagedata is played back or retrieved or selected to be displayed on themobile communication terminal 200, the data configuration module 260enables the touch data to be displayed on the display module 210 alongwith the image data at a time during the playback corresponding to atime when the touch data is inputted. As an example, if five minutes ofvideo as image data is generated, and touch data of ‘DUMMY’ is inputtedat a time of two minutes thirty seconds into the generation or playbackof the video, the data configuration module 260 may mix the touch datawith the image data representing the video at that time and the displaymodule 210 will display the touch data of ‘DUMMY’ at two minutes andthirty seconds when next playing back the video.

If the touch input moves over the touch area, the data configurationmodule 260 may generate touch data having a shape that corresponds tothe movement of the touch input.

If the display module 210 provides an emoticon via the image displayarea, a user may select an emoticon, and thereafter the input module 240may generate a selected emoticon as the touch data.

The storage module 230 may store the generated touch data along with theimage data. That is, the storage module 230 may store the touch dataincluding the time information and coordinate information as dataassociated with the image data. Throughout this specification, the touchdata is described as data “associated with” the image data, and thisdescription is intended to cover many different storage options. Onestorage option is that the touch data may be stored separately from theimage data, as a separate file, but that data associating the image dataand the touch data will also be generated and stored. In this manner,the storage module 230 may be able to retrieve the image data in a firstformat with the touch data or in a second format without the touch data.Alternatively, another storage option is that the touch data is storedas embedded data in the image data, and that the touch data and imagedata are stored as a single file in the storage module 230. The singlefile may be encoded and/or compressed. Depending on the storage scheme,a user of the mobile communication terminal may select image data, touchdata, or a combination thereof to send to another mobile communicationterminal by, for example, MMS. Then, a user may send image dataincluding touch data, or may send either image data or touch dataseparately.

The display control module 220 may control the touch data to bedisplayed on the image display area along with the image data. That is,the display control module 220 may control the image data to beassociated and displayed with the touch data.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of generating image data inthe mobile communication terminal 200 of FIG. 2.

As shown in a reference numeral 310, the mobile communication terminal200 may receive the touch data of ‘DUMMY’ from the user in the toucharea and display the touch data on the image display area. The user mayinput the touch data of ‘DUMMY’ using fingers, stylus or sticks, pens,and the like. The mobile communication terminal 200 may store the touchdata of ‘DUMMY’ in the storage module 230 by associating the touch datawith the image data based on the time information when the touch data of‘DUMMY’ is inputted and coordinate information corresponding to alocation on the image data where the touch data is input on the imagedisplay area.

Alternatively, as shown in a reference numeral 320, the mobilecommunication terminal 200 may receive an emoticon, heart shapes in thisinstance, as touch data when the touch data is generated. If theemoticon is generated as touch data, when the user selects the emoticonand selects a point where the emoticon is to be located, the mobilecommunication terminal 200 may display the emoticon on the establishedcoordinates where the emoticon is to be located. As explained above, themobile communication terminal 200 may store the touch data byassociating the touch data with the image data in the storage module230. In this instance, the touch data will include the type of emoticon,the time information, and the coordinate information.

As an example, the mobile communication terminal 200 may provide a listof possible emoticons, permit a user to select one or more emoticonsfrom the provided list of emoticons, and generate the selected emoticonas touch data when the touch input is received. Thus, the user maycreate or receive new emoticons to add to the list, and revise or deleteexisting emoticons from the list of emoticons.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating another configuration of a mobilecommunication terminal 400 according to an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention.

The mobile communication terminal 400 may include a display module 410,a touch key input module 420, a coordinates information extraction andtouch data generation module 430, a touch data & image data & camcorderdata mixer 440, an encoder 450, a transmission module 460, and a storage470.

The display module 410 may display image data on an image display areavia a camcorder and a mike, and the touch key input module 420 mayreceive touch data from a user. When the user touches the touch area,the coordinates information extraction & touch data generation module430 may generate the touch data by extracting touched coordinateinformation. The generated touch data may be associated with the imagedata in the touch data & input data & camcorder data mixer 440. Theencoder 450 may encode the image data and touch data, and the mobilecommunication terminal may store the encoded image data and touch datain the storage 470. In this context, the storage 470 may store theencoded image data and touch data as a single encoded file. Thetransmission module 460 may transmit the encoded image data and touchdata, such as to another mobile communication terminal by MMS, throughan email application, through an internet-based application, or througha wireless or wired data transfer mechanism.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a data input method according to anexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

The data input method may be implemented in the mobile communicationterminal 200 of FIG. 2 or may be implemented in the mobile communicationterminal of FIG. 4. The data input method is described above withrespect to the mobile communication terminal 200 shown in FIG. 2.

In operation S510, the mobile communication terminal 200 may displayimage data on an image display area. The various types of image data aredescribed in more detail above. The image display area may be an areawhere pictures taken via a camera in the mobile communication terminal200 are displayed.

In operation S520, the mobile communication terminal 200 may generatetouch data according to a touch input in a touch area corresponding tothe image display area. The touch area may cover or include all of theimage display area. The mobile communication terminal 200 may obtaintime information of a time when the touch input is received via a timerand may calculate coordinate information about a point where the touchinput is received in the touch area.

In operation S530, the mobile communication terminal 200 may store thegenerated touch data associated with the image data in the storagemodule 230. That is, the mobile communication terminal 200 may associatethe touch data with the image data based on the time information and thecoordinate information, and may store the associated data in the storagemodule 230, thereby enabling the touch data and the image data to beretrieved from the storage module 230 and displayed on a display module210.

Similarly, the mobile communication terminal 200, as illustrated in FIG.3, may display the generated touch data on the image display area alongwith the image data.

The above-described exemplary embodiments of the present invention maybe recorded in computer-readable media including program instructions toimplement various operations embodied by a computer. The media may alsoinclude, alone or in combination with the program instructions, datafiles, data structures, and the like. Examples of computer-readablemedia include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, andmagnetic tape; optical media such as CD ROM disks and DVDs;magneto-optical media such as optical disks; and hardware devices thatare specially configured to store and perform program instructions, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), flash memory, andthe like. Examples of program instructions include both machine code,such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level codethat may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. The describedhardware devices may include a processor to execute the programinstructions and a memory, and may be configured to act as one or moresoftware modules in order to perform the operations of theabove-described exemplary embodiments of the present invention.

According to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, touchdata can be generated according to a touch input in a touch areacorresponding to the image display area. The touch data may beassociated with the image data, and stored so that when the image datais retrieved and displayed, the touch data is also displayed.

According to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, userenjoyment may be increased by associating touch data, such ascharacters, icons, and graphics, with image data.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variousmodifications and variations can be made in the present inventionwithout departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, it isintended that the present invention cover the modifications andvariations of this invention provided they come within the scope of theappended claims and their equivalents.

1. A mobile communication terminal, comprising: a display module todisplay image data on an image display area; an input module to generatetouch data according to a touch input in a touch area; and a storagemodule to store the touch data associated with the image data.
 2. Themobile communication terminal of claim 1, wherein the touch areacorresponds to the image display area.
 3. The mobile communicationterminal of claim 1, further comprising: a data configuration module toobtain time information of a time when the touch input is received, andto associate the touch data with the image data based on the timeinformation.
 4. The mobile communication terminal of claim 1, furthercomprising: an input sensor to calculate coordinate information about aposition of the touch input in the touch area, wherein the input modulegenerates the touch data based on the coordinate information.
 5. Themobile communication terminal of claim 1, further comprising: a displaycontrol module to control the touch data on the image display area andto control the image data.
 6. The mobile communication terminal of claim1, wherein if the touch input moves over the touch area, the inputmodule generates touch data corresponding to the movement of the touchinput.
 7. The mobile communication terminal of claim 1, wherein thedisplay module provides an emoticon via the input display area, and theinput module generates the emoticon as the touch data in response to thetouch input.
 8. The mobile communication terminal of claim 1, whereinthe image data comprises a still image, video, or a document in anapplication-specific format or in an image format.
 9. The mobilecommunication terminal of claim 1, wherein the image data is capturedvia a camera arranged in the mobile communication terminal, or isreceived by the mobile communication terminal via a multimedia messageservice (MMS), an email application on the mobile communicationterminal, an internet application on the mobile communication terminal,an Infrared Data Association (IrDA) module, or a Bluetooth® module. 10.The mobile communication terminal of claim 1, wherein the storage modulestores the touch data as separate data from the image data, and storesassociation data to associate the image data and the touch data.
 11. Themobile communication terminal of claim 1, wherein the storage modulestores the touch data as embedded data in the image data.
 12. The mobilecommunication terminal of claim 1, further comprising an encoder toencode the touch data and the image data.
 13. A data input method, themethod comprising: displaying image data on an image display area;generating touch data according to a touch input in a touch area;associating the touch data with the image data; and storing the touchdata associated with the image data.
 14. The method of claim 13, whereinthe touch area corresponds to the image display area.
 15. The method ofclaim 13, further comprising: obtaining time information of a time whenthe touch input is received; and associating the touch data with theimage data based on the obtained time information.
 16. The method ofclaim 13, wherein generating the touch data comprises: calculatingcoordinate information about a position of the touch input in the toucharea; and generating the touch data based on the coordinate information.17. The method of claim 13, further comprising: controlling the touchdata on the image display area and also controlling the image data. 18.The method of claim 13, wherein if the touch input moves over the toucharea, touch data corresponding to the movement of the touch input isgenerated.
 19. The method of claim 13, further comprising: providing anemoticon via the input display area; and generating the emoticon as thetouch data in response to the touch input.
 20. A computer-readablemedium comprising computer readable instructions, and a computercomprising a processor and a memory, the computer to execute thecomputer readable instructions to perform the method of claim 13.